Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors, was in Denmark to meet with industry leaders and politicians

The cheapest Tesla would jump from 642,300 kroner to 1,721,846 kroner (photo: iStock)

September 26th, 2015 12:00 pm| by Philip Tees

As part of a European tour, Elon Musk, the CEO of the luxury electric car brand Tesla, has met with representatives from Danish business and politicians from Christiansborg and delivered the message that an end to the attractive tax exemption on electric cars would effectively mean an end for Tesla in Denmark, Berlingske reports.

Price jumpTesla’s cheapest model currently costs 642,300 kroner in Denmark, but if it were not for the exemption, it would come in at 1,721,846 kroner. The most expensive model would jump to almost 2.5 million kroner.

The Venstre government has indicated it wants to scrap the exemption, which was instituted as part of the 2012 tax reform and was scheduled to last at least until the end of 2016 by the previous government. As things stand, it will disappear at the end of 2015.

According to Berlingske, a number of the participants at the meeting said that Musk equated an end to the exemption with sales of his popular vehicles coming to a standstill. This he reportedly said would also mean an end to Tesla’s investment in the country.

Investment potential
Henrik Isaksen, the Danish head of the car rental company Sixt, who was present at the meeting with Musk, said that the Tesla CEO praised Denmark’s green credentials and said it was a natural pioneer country for the company.

“He was very engaged in Denmark’s possibilities within wind energy, whereby electric cars are an obvious possibility for storing energy in the periods when the wind is blowing but consumption is low,” he said.

“If you could get someone like Elon Musk to throw his resources into developing those kinds of solutions, then there would be huge potential.”